The professional and amateur sports industries in the United States alone generate multibillion dollars of revenues per annum. The financial position of a particular sports team or an athlete is usually closely determined by the success of the team or individual in sports competitions. The introduction, therefore, of new techniques and equipment that increase an individual athlete's or a team's competitive performance can therefore be of great value to numerous firms and sports participants.
Soccer, for example, is a sport that has overwhelming global appeal which transcends national, cultural, religious, and gender boundaries, as well as socioeconomic class. Soccer's appeal continues to grow with an ever-expanding audience through out the world in both industrialized and developing countries.
Estimates suggest that there are over 240 million registered soccer players worldwide with fan participation in the billions. The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), serves as the international governing body of soccer. FIFA is composed of both men's and women's clubs from around the globe, which are organized and compete within a worldwide soccer league. Founded in 1904 in Paris France, FIFA is currently made up of 205 member associations with over 300,000 clubs and 240 million players from around the world.
The international economic value of improved training methods and equipment for soccer players alone is quite significant.
The principal objective of the present invention is to provide a method and equipment that may be applied to sponsor the development of skills beneficial for athletic performance in ball based sports. This and other objectives of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in this field from the following description of examples and aspects of the invention.